Insights > Customer Stories

Breaking Down Data Silos

When a large wood product company needed a way to securely access all its disparate and siloed data, they partnered with Redapt to design and build a solution that allowed them to securely put their information to work.

In a nutshell ...

A large lumber company has two core divisions. One division is focused on the manufacturing of wood products (e.g., lumber, plywood, engineered wood). To get its product to end customers, the manufacturing division will sell its products to a variety of distribution companies—including their own internal distribution division. Meanwhile, the distribution division will purchase wood products from not only its own wood product production division but from other wood product production competitors.

1
The problem

Because of the organizational structure, as well as legal and ethical concerns, the company needed to keep data from both divisions separate—but also have data consolidation at the corporate level. As a result, the company was experiencing data sprawl that made it difficult to actually put data to use efficiently.

2
The solution

The company needed a way to gather all its data into one centralized repository while maintaining strict governance and security.

Redapt worked with the company to cleanse and migrate all their data to a cloud platform. We also developed a master data management (MDM) solution and a data catalog to allow for self-service reporting from business analyst teams.

3
The outcome

By moving from multiple data sources to a single data repository in the cloud, the company was able to begin accessing and analyzing information at a lower cost while still adhering to strict governance and security.

Moment of clarity

Given the sheer number of data sources the company relied upon, we determined a cloud platform would allow them to utilize data warehousing while limiting access to information to only those approved for it.

lumber-yard_case-study-photo

What the company needed

The company had expanded its business beyond its core offerings and was providing distribution for multiple suppliers.

While the company had access to a large amount of data, much of the information was located in different locations and platforms. In addition, from an ethical and legal standpoint, they couldn’t allow widespread access to competitor data.

This had created an environment within the company where useful data was being siloed, which made it extremely difficult to efficiently use all their information for business analysis and intelligence.

Our recommendation

Redapt worked with the company to select a cloud platform and build out a single repository that featured:

    • Quick access to data provisioned by division/department
    • Ability to create visualization, analytics, and data science
    • A detailed roadmap for migrating data to the cloud
    • An MDM platform for visibility
    • A data catalog for self-service reporting
    • Robust governance and security protocols

Your trust and confidentiality are our top priorities. Redapt prioritizes and protects our customer’s privacy, so we don’t publicly disclose account names or other identifiable information. We are eager to share our successes and are happy to provide specific referrals or case studies upon request.

The end result

By moving to a single cloud platform with best practices in place, the company has been able to:

  • redapt_icons_capabilities_advanced-data-and-analytics Accelerate business intelligence

    via the ability to analyze all data efficiently.

  • redapt_icon_data-set-scale-inspect-manage Monitor all access to data

    easily from the MDM platform.

  • redapt_icon-list-process-step Utilize a data catalog

    to allow business analysts to self-service the data they need for reporting while still only having access to the data they’ve been approved to use.

Contact us to gain a little more clarity

We love a challenge. Tell us about your needs, goals, and the obstacles in your way. We’ll help you find solutions to get past them.

Get in touch directly:

results@redapt.com
(425) 882-0400